Quinion has a nice answer for the various pronunciations of lieutenent: (link).
quote:
There's been quite enough head-scratching down the years about why Americans say the word as "lju'tenant" or "loo'tenant" while British and Commonwealth people prefer "lef'tenant". The Royal Navy and Commonwealth navies have had a third way of saying it, a half-swallowed "l'tenant"; I'm told this was mainly a lower-deck form and has now largely gone out of use.
Excellent, zmj. Thanks for that. Ashamedly, I hadn't known of another pronunciation besides "lew'tenant." That Noah Webster did seem to have a lot of influence on our spelling and pronunciations, didn't he?
I loved Quinion's comment that he couldn't seem to lay his "electronic hands" on a copy of the 1797 edition of Webster's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary. I hadn't heard that "electronic hands" phrase before, but it fits some situations perfectly! I'd love to see a copy of that Critical Pronouncing Dictionary. I'll be in Portland in June, and I am hoping Powell's will have a copy for me to view.
